Mafia News

Tailoring for top Milan fashion houses, pirating of DVDs and handbags, fishing of endangered bluefin tuna and brewing genetically-modified beer are all part and parcel of Italy’s thoroughly modern Mafia. Continue Reading »

It may be the moment when the throwaway society meets its retribution. A shadow this weekend hangs over one of the great staples of modern European life – Italy’s mozzarella cheese.

The topping on a billion pizzas, the magic ingredient in a million salads, is at the centre of a major food scare involving pollution, corruption, the Mafia and southern Italy’s remarkable crisis in waste management. Continue Reading »

The boy, who has not been named, was whisked away from the city of Naples with his family after he helped police arrest the accused killer.

A 13-year-old boy who saw a mafia murder in southern Italy and identified the killer is living in a secret location under police protection, investigators said on Thursday. Continue Reading »

It’s an offer you can’t refuse if you’re visiting Italy on holiday this year - a tourist guidebook on the Mafia. The 55-page pocketbook hit the streets this week and they have been flying off the shelves.

Author Augusto Cavadi, 58, says his aim is to explain “everything you ever wanted to know about the Mafia but were afraid to ask.” Continue Reading »

No one will win next month’s elections in Italy, especially not the nation’s citizens. For all the campaign rhetoric about change and reform, everyone seems dead set on ignoring the country’s fundamental problem: organized crime, or what we might call our criminal economy. Talk of this corruption crisis never goes beyond expressions of solidarity with the victims, praise for the valiant police, and generic appeals to morality. All of which leads nowhere. Last year, a report by the Italian business association Confesercenti estimated that the Mob in Italy generated more than $125 billion of annual revenue, a figure equal to 7% of the country’s gross domestic product. That’s more than double the annual income of Italy’s entire agricultural sector.

The world reads headlines such as MAFIA INC. ITALY’S LARGEST COMPANY, but none of the candidates for Prime Minister deem this worthy of mention. The Sicilian Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria and Camorra in my home region of Campania currently reign over one-third of Italy’s territory, infiltrating entire sectors of the aboveboard economy — transportation, hospitals, construction, fashion, supermarkets, agriculture — like a cancer to which no part of the nation is immune. Continue Reading »

Police suspect incident is part of ongoing war between crime groups

Prague — On the afternoon of March 8, two unidentified gunmen wounded two Russian-speaking men on Pařížská street close to Old Town Square, leading to strong speculations that the incident is a part of an ongoing mafia war. Continue Reading »

ROME — A suspected Mafia clan member weighing 210 kilogrammes (460 pounds) was placed under house arrest after putting too heavy a burden on prison staff, Italian press reports said Wednesday. Continue Reading »

Naples — Italian investigators have seized assets worth 150 million euros from an Italian businessman with alleged links to the Mafia organisation, known as the Camorra.

Gaetano Iorio, a businessman with ties to the powerful Casalesi clan, was the target of anti-Mafia investigators who confiscated material outside the southern city of Naples on Tuesday. Continue Reading »

The Mafia have gone online to steal £10million from an Italian government bank account, it was revealed yesterday. Continue Reading »

Gela — Convicted members of a Mafia clan, among them the wife of Mafia boss Giuseppe “Piddu” Madonia, were freed in 2002 on a legal technicality, according to Italian daily La Repubblica.

A judge in the Sicilian city of Gela, Edi Pinatto, was due to deposit the written sentence three months after the trial of Madonia’s wife, Giovanna Santoro, prominent Mafia men Giuseppe Lombardo and Carmelo Barbieri and other clan members. Continue Reading »